


God Complex

by ProdigySorcerer



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, F/M, Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:30:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3238085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProdigySorcerer/pseuds/ProdigySorcerer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Career officer Stannis Baratheon rushes in to stop a suicide attack at the location he's guarding fully intending to die as to minimize the damage.</p><p>To his and everyone's surprise he survives unburned from the wildfire which consumed everything around him, which leads to the Red God fundamentalists behind the attack, led by Mellisandre of Ashai, to proclaim him their god's reborn champion.    </p><p>Stannis must now use his influence to try and stop the Red God fanatics from committing any more attacks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rebirth

Stannis didn’t have the time to do anything but rush the suicide bomber and hope beyond hope that he maybe could stun the black haired youth before he pushed the button in his hands.

If he had just a few seconds more to take in the situation, he would have realised that the bomber was standing close enough that tackling was better than wiping out his pistol and taking a shot,precisely because he wanted to draw in the commanding officer of the unit guarding the plant.

The last thing the bomber did before pushing the button which triggered his wildfire vest was laughing at the infidel who was furiously trying to stop him all the while grinding his teeth in preparation for his demise.

~~~

A few weeks ago ...

The small office in the Dragonstone University building, betrayed the non tenured status of it’s equally small owner Stannis reasoned with himself that he was here listening to his good brother make predictions on the terrorists next target because Tyrion was a smart well educated man who made sense, and not because he felt sympathy or knew what it was like for a younger brother who was desperate to impress his career military father but was always overshadowed by his more physically inclined elder brother.

“When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt.” Tyrion intoned seriously and Stannis began to think on wether he should rescind his impression on his good brother making sense “... the red star that bleed will be this comet that is due to pass over our heads very shortly ... ” Tyrion continued.

“I’ll give you that the timeframe seems to be right, we’ve had warnings increased movement increased communication between suspect individuals we even have some double agents who are assuring us the Red God’s ahem holly warriors are going to do something big soon.”

“They all want to prove themselves Azor Ahai reborn their great hero reborn, even taking the best case for them into account and one of them is a mythical champion for their god all of the others aren’t going to have +20 fire resistance and they’re going to fry in their own wildfire.” the small lion continued.

“Is there a point to this Tyrion ?” Stannis interjected not making the slightest effort to hide his annoyance.

“Look all they need to complete their messiah equation is salt, you could argue the salty sea water all around us is going to be that or that they’ll go to the convenience store and buy some packets of salt and stuff them in their pockets. But I believe they’re going to try and blow up the desalination plant which provides us with most of our freshwater on this rock.”

“That’s not even on the list of targets our experts compiled ... and to be frank I’m only here listening to a professor of mythology talk about potential terrorist targets because we’re in-laws.”

“Stannis if I thought I were any use in a fight I’d be there myself but I know no dwarf is going to save the day against wildfire and no suicide bomber is going to be payed off no matter how much Lannister dragons I throw at them so you’re my only chance you’ve got to convince Robert to assign some Gold Cloaks to guard the plant.” 

“Hnn we have some green recruits we didn’t feel safe assigning to the current list of potential targets, they might be of some help and I’ll swing by to make sure they maintain their discipline.”

~~~

His head hurt enough that he was barely able to concentrate enough to open his eyes but in the end he managed to due it if only to see where the hell he was.

Finally he saw long blonde hair, a beautiful heart shaped face, and green eyes fleckered with gold this angel opened her lips to speak:

“Up at last Stannis ?”

At that very moment two things confirmed to him, he truly was dead and in one of the seven hells and his sister-in-law was in fact literally a demon as he had suspected from the first time Robert had introduced his then date to his brothers.

He was just about to ask for clarification on which of the Seven had condemned him to an eternity in her presence but she was busy opening the door and calling everyone in alerting them to his recovery.

And in they did come, Robert was the first, his oaf of a brother hugged him so hard he thought he was going to fall back into a comma followed by Renly who had enough sense as to not worsen his medical condition.

After them were the next generation of golden haired Baratheons his nephews and niece, the true danger of his condition was made apparent by the fact even Joffrey seemed to be relieved to see him awake.

And finally in crept the sheepish looking little lion Tyrion, Stannis seeing the expression on his face wanted to mention no ill feeling were involved it had turned out he had been completely and utterly right, but he was in fact too tired to do anything more and he felt his eyes closing. 

~~~

Several hours latter ...

After he woke up again, he found doctors fussing over him and after being given some IV’s they’d pronounced him in a most excellent physical state seeing as he’d just survived a wildfire explosion at point blank and curiously lacking any burns whatsoever.

This was quite the topic of debate for his brothers, unfortunately they decided to debate in the same room as him. 

“It’s our Targaryen blood ... it’s the only thing which makes any sense how else you explain Stannis being immune to fire ?” Robert made his case.

“Only thing that makes sense ??? How about anything besides fucking magic look I’m as thankful to the Seven as anyone that our brother isn’t a smoked ham right now but there’s got to be a scientific explanation to this. Remember when they tested that pure blood Targaryen ... ” Renly countered

“Pure blood more like inbred you mean. Why do you think grandmother ran away from them and married ... ”

“Doesn’t matter they tested everyone and found nothing magic, no mana no special gene to control fire breathing lizards just a bunch of recessive hair and eye color traits.”

Stannis so wanted to ask them why were they yelling in his impromptu ward, why was he even released to Robert’s house but he then realised that as a career soldier with no wife no kids who the hell were they going to release him to eventually ?

The realisation brought up a bitter streak into his thoughts and he managed just to yell at his brothers to keep it down and turn up the damn thermostat as it was feezing in here.

Myrcella peeked her head into the door and coughed to get the supposed adults’s attention.

“Daddy, uncle Stannis Mommy says there’s something you need to see on the TV ...” when she saw the confused looks this got her from the brothers she added “Mommy says the Red Bi ... umm naughty B-word is on the TV and talking about uncle Stannis.”

Of course Stannis was in no position to go into the living room and see what was going on the TV, but his brothers went and after a good deal of swearing and debate Stannis could sort of pick up, it seemed they were debating wether to show him or not and Robert eventually won that argument as Joffrey’s laptop was brought to his bed.

The transmission, Smith bless the internet, had already gotten uploaded online.

The moment the woman appeared on screen Stannis managed to understand what Myrcella had meant, she was the leader of several extremist cells of Red God followers, but the terrorist leader nicknamed “The Red Woman” had gained her notoriety with the Westeross public more due to her striking appearance than with anything else.

With dyed red hair and painted red lips the terrorist leader looked more like she should be on the arm of fat old senator or businessman bleeding him dry and not planning attacks on secular society in the name of a Esterossian god.

“Stannis Baratheon ” the image of the woman took life as the play button was pushed her voice rich and accented saying his name sent shivers down his spine “yes we know your name ... we were watching that faithful day and although our brother was not found worthy by the Red God that day your emergence unscathed from the flames surrounded by salt and under the bleeding sky shows you to ... ”

Stannis openly scoffed he’d hardly call being in a comma as emerging unscathed showed what she knew, and that was nothing.

“to be AZOR AHAI come again ... reborn ... the champion of the Lord of Light ... ”

“About the first time a woman called you god eh Stannis?” Renly equiped only to receive a glare from Robert of all people who seemed to be taking the mad woman deadly seriously. 

“ ... as per the prophecies you will lead us to victory in the Dawn War. ”

Robert hit the pause button.

“Maybe this was a bad idea, you okay little brother ? This was a lot and we don’t know how stress ...”

“No, you were right I might as well know the full extent of the insanity I’m in for.” came the staunch reply and the video resumed.

“We know in your former life you were not a believer, we know you’re with the Enemy right now but the Lord will provide stay strong Stannis and come to us ... we need you ... I need you the world needs you Stannis Baratheon Azor Ahai reborn.”

The video faded to back and the website was quick to offer videos tagged with similar content Stannis could only look on to the pics of video reports showing similar attacks to those he had somehow survived, his mind a empty cavern filled only with the echoes of those last longful, dare he say needy, words from the video.


	2. Innitiation

“Stop grinding your teeth!” the nurse said for the seventh time that day in a tone which spoke of complete and total exasperation with her patient

“Pardon my brother please, it’s just his way of dealing with stress.” Renly tried to mediate.

Stannis just gave her a cold stare and tried to focus back on what Renly had just told him.

“What do you mean I have seven facebooks and twenty twitters?” he asked incredulously.

“People were curious after the news leaked out of your survival and complete lack of burns, but it was mostly pseudo-scientific debate on how it was possible ...”

“And how was it ? Crone give us all wisdom when the best formulated theory is Robert ... Robert ranting about our sang royale !!! ”

“Meh you know string theory, a void pocket formed by bla bla the fact that our family we’re all Illuminati lizard people ... point is the Mythbusters episode is not yet out but once Melisandre butted into the conversation it’s become political and religious.” 

“I hate ... ” Stannis began his head downcast.

“Yes politics I know I know, but it’s worse than that it’s religious now you had one facebook page Davos strong armed you into making and one twitter account I made for you for that PR event our division was having but now they’ve popped up in your name, some advocating that you really are this messiah some that you’re a government pawn some that you’re pawn and gay and everyone of them is using your name to push articles, comments, events, porn which fit their perspective of you.”

“Uhm what is you real twitter I may ask?” the nurse inquired.

The patient just silently glared at her while Renly replied.

“@lawfullKing264 which now has 10k subscribers and before you start yes I know you’ve never used it but I can tell you that’s pretty good. Problem is that we have people like @Azor_Stannis who have 50k and they’re advocating storming the Great Sept in your name.”

“So I could just command them to stand down and surrender to the proper authorities, reign of terror over.” Stannis said jokingly

“Uhm not so easy, the official leadership of the Faith of the Red God has denounced you of course and several terrorist leaders as popular as the Red Woman or much more powerful have also denounced you.”

“The effigy market must be booming then,” that was the stereotypical method for the Red God fanatics to show their discontent threats of burning alive, burning effigies or the actual infidels if they could get their hands on them “and don’t tell me of the High Priest of R’hhlor that coward won’t even admit it’s his soldiers attacking us ...” Stannis began to rant seemingly more distasteful of the cowardice than everything.

Their conversation was then interrupted by two men in uniform entering the room and informing Stannis that general Lannister was looking for him.

~~~

General Tywin Lannister was a war hero, decorated, served with distinction in the so called “War of Ninepeny Kings” which some would credit with sowing the seeds of their current conflict, yet at the same time he was the father of the trio consisting of Cersei, Jaimie and Tyrion.

This situation almost worshipping the man from the afar when he was studying at the academy, knowing him to have been a close friend to his deceased father and then actually interacting with him when he’d visit Robert’s home had caused Stannis serious mental whiplash over the years.

But now Tywin seemed to have definitely shifted to his “disappointed father” mode as he was reading through a summary of the battery of tests he was subjected to.

“Dr Quiburn has some choice words to say about your refusal to participate in some of the procedures.” Tywin finally said raising his eyes to look at Stannis who had been standing in the inspection posture since he’d entered the room and gave his salute.

“Permission to speak frankly, sir ?”

“Now who am I to deny permission to the Red God’s champion ?” the general replied in a subtly mocking tone.

“Your Dr. Quiburn is a castle, lightning rod and corpse away from shouting ‘It’s Alive’ and I’d rather not be that corpse ” 

“He is a bit ... unorthodox that’s sure but he is the best the Army can offer when researching such odd incidents as your own, but I removed you from the good doctor’s care because we need you now for this operation. I’m sure even a soldier as dutiful as yourself has given some thought on the influence he could wield when treated as a god made flesh.”

“Hmph if it were as easy as me ordering all the loonies to turn themselves in you’d have made me do that press conferrence the moment I woke up from my coma.” Stannis offered

“In a way it might just be that easy, this Melisandre our experts, and this includes my son who practically earned a PhD in the field of ‘unstable women’, believe is so sure of her ability to divine the future with her flames that once she’s accepted a vision she will bend all the facts before her to make them fit that vision.”

“So I could show up to her wearing a ‘I <3 the government’ t-shirt and she’d still see me as the Azor Ahai and to be feared and obeyed? “

“Not exactly, as a commanding officer yourself I trust you see the subtle point they believe you are to lead them in the Dawn War, if you seem for example not fit to give orders they will fight on in your name and we will have lost this unexpected advantage.”

“So I have to play the part at least a bit of the terrorist leader ?”

“Some battles are won with arms some with words, we both know this Stannis.”

~~~

The call from the terrorists came unexpectedly, General Lannister informed him they were in the process of subtly feeding them info about his whereabouts and analysing their moves to contact him, he was told to go to a busy city park on the eastern side of Dragonstone and wait there.

He did his duty and walked into the lion’s den, the one sent to pick him was a Westerossi woman he would say about his age tall and with prominent ears, although he thought that in the right light she might be attractive. 

She was mercifully quiet as she drove them to the poor side of Dragonstone where it seemed they had their safe house, Stannis was glad she refrained from trying to make smalltalk with him along the way, but the fact that she was chosen to be his driver and a certain look in her eyes when she stole glances at him left no doubt in his mind that she believed him the reborn champion of her god.

So she was sorely in need of a nice long vacation in a padded room and lots of prescription medication.

~~~

By contrast to his quiet ride over, just being in the Red Woman’s presence made him on edge in a way not even being on the battlefield, somehow she was even more more dramatic in person than when making announcements on TV.

The moment he entered the room she was upon him, to hell with the notion of personal space and respecting it for other people.

“I knew you’d make your way to us, the flames revealed this to me.” she began in lieu of a introduction, her hand was already on his shoulder did she think he was so weak he couldn’t stand up or was she grabbing him so he wouldn’t run away.

And her hand was hot, literally, hot it’s heat was seeping in through his civilian cotton shirt and heating up that entire area of his torso Stannis then snorted thinking of Quiburn’s idiotic theories of him becoming resistant or immune to heat and fire.

Melisandre seemed taken aback by the snort but pressed on this time in a lower voice as if there was someone listening in, which there wasn’t Stannis and Tywin had considered it but eventually opted to not go that route in case he was searched.

“I know you still think your allegiance ... your duty is to them, to your government.But R’hlorr has chosen you again he has guided you your whole life up to this point shown you to us via the wildfire your duty is to lead us in the Dawn War ... I will follow even if my work will be undone but you will understand eventually and then the war will be won.”

She spoke so passionately and of things he knew and he valued war, victory, duty that Stannis almost was convinced but something she said brought him back to Earth, if the Red God had indeed planed his whole life he had a lot to explain about it when Stannis met him, parents dead when the brothers were only children all of them feeling pressured to enter the Army in one way or another and thus risking their lives every day, by the Seven the simple fact that Robert was the only one who got married and had kids who would carry on the Baratheon name was insane.

He considered for a second wether this woman, a terrorist leader who had sworn herself to his his cause seven hells practically invented his cause, would be interested in hearing him complain about the sad state of pretty much everything in his life except his career, in the end he decided this was not the best time and he should get to work.

“Then you know ... from your flames what I’m going to ask you to do ?” he asked

“Yes, I’ll admit ... I still have my pride to see my work dismantled like this hurts, but the Red Lord guides your hand even when you think you’re working for your generals.” 

The rest of the night was spent contacting as manny of Melisandre’s cells as they could, Stannis had to admit the woman had a good head on her shoulders he didn’t know much about technology but she seemed to be using very ingenious methods of encrypting her messages as to send them out over the public lines.

Beyond that there was the sheer soft skills she seemed to have, getting known violent probably insane individuals the sort which make up the backbone of a terrorist movement to acquiesence to her will and stand down, Renly would have loved to have her on his PR department team.

It wasn’t a 100% success rate some cells refused to bend the knee to their new Azor Ahai, doubting his claim or thinking Melisandre was bought of by the Westerossian government, unfortunately the way their organisation was structured in independent cells the one who still wanted to continue to fight could do so.

But still Stannis felt that together they had done good work, most of her subordinates had acquiesced and were now standing down the Seven only knew how manny attacks they had stopped that night, that was why Stannis the next morning didn’t fell that much shame, when he woke up in Melisandre’s bed naked and with her sleeping on top of him.

The next couple of days passed in a similar fashion, Melisandre had cells which could only communicate on certain days of the week or were in radio silence for other reasons dismantling her network would take time, they only acknowledged their carnal relationships when she would quip there were new benefits in worshipping R’hllor now that he had chosen as a champion a man in uniform.

It all came to an end when she received a SMS on one of her numerous prepaid cellular phones, after having read she looked sheepishly at him and put her hand on his shoulder as if to console him, not a very good sign in Stannis’s mind.

“I’ve been made aware you have a friend, a Davos Seaworth ... ”

Stannis could only damn the media or whoever found this tidbit Davos was indeed the closest he had to a best friend, he was serving in the navy when his ship capsized due to a suicide wildfire attack a few weeks before the damned attacks on Dragonstone now the memory of his friend would be caught up in this Azor Ahai mess, he tried not to react to the name.

“I’ve seen his face in my fires and I sent word out I’m interested in him ... don’t look at me like that ... he’s alive he was caught by some of our operatives after the attack.”

“WhereIsHe?” Stannis broke in not bothering to hide his emotions.

“A base in Essos Ashai to be more exact, I replied to them just now that the mind breakers should stop working on him right now but I don’t know my influence isn’t that great with the home group and you’re basically a pretender to them.”

“Show me where ... no take me there I’ll get him back myself.”

“Stannis I’ll follow you ” Melisandre said as if it were the most causal thing in the world “but you must know your generals in the Army won’t approve of you going to Ashai.” she said in a serious tone looking him in the eye. 

“Damn them, if they won’t protect soldiers like Davos ... they are the enemy.” he said in a voice which harbored no hesitation whatsoever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really do twitter so I don't know if 10k and 50k followers are realistic or if the figures should be higher or lower for a media celebrity/ancient hero reborn.
> 
> As an additional note I have Stannis refer to the Seven hells this the Crone that but it's just his cultural upbringing in this AU like in the canon Stannis's faith in the gods took a nosedive once his parents died.


End file.
